A brief post on getting pupils to pay attention
Pupils do a lot of listening in classrooms – to explanations, information, narratives, arguments, model answers, feedback, dialogues, other pupils’ contributions and interactions, instructions, advice or guidance, and so on. Continue reading “Ready to listen”
Classroom strategies for the explicit teaching of spoken expression
When we think about how to develop pupils’ talk in the classroom, it is natural to focus on the ‘opportunities’ we’re providing for pupils to practise speaking. We also know that developing vocabulary and subject knowledge, the raw material for talk, is key. These are essential, of course. But just as we actively and deliberately teach pupils how to write, we can and should also be teaching pupils explicitly how to be effective talkers – not just letting that develop.
And talk is complicated. This excellent schematic from Voice 21 sets out very clearly the multiple dimensions of talk – the physical, linguistic, cognitive, and social and emotional – and the various elements within these.
Below are some suggested principles for the explicit teaching of talk and spoken expression, in any subject. Importantly, these approaches can mostly be woven into or made part of existing practice. They are not about extra activities, or extra curriculum: they are about good subject teaching.
A notoriously unhelpful piece of lesson observation feedback is that there was insufficient ‘pace’. Of course, in discussion this might be teased out and made sense of, but sometimes it is left unclear, or (worse) it can reflect a misunderstanding of what the teacher was doing, or of how a subject works.
The difficulty, of course, is that ‘pace’ (in any meaningful sense) is about things that are subjective.
Pace has been written about a lot, but – in case it’s of any use or interest – here is my own take on it. Nothing original – just some accumulated thoughts.
(Image from The Æsop for Children, illustrated by Milo Winter, Project Gutenburg) Continue reading “Some thoughts on ‘pace’”
Short-burst pair or group talk activities which can be woven into reading lessons
In other posts, I’ve suggested that the most effective whole-class reading sessions allow for seamless weaving together of whole-class discussion, individual thinking time and pair or small group talk. below are some examples of typical, short pair or group talk activities (30 seconds to a couple of minutes) which can be woven into reading lessons so that pupils are required to retrieve and to rehearse knowledge, to develop and refine understandings, and to practise the articulation of these things, as well as develop their independence and their personal and social confidence as readers. Continue reading “Quick talk about texts”
James Durran 